The Halfback by Night
by yorickjones
Summary: It's 1974 and P.I. Jim Rockford is about to come face to face with the supernatural thanks to his incidental acquaintance with Chicago reporter Carl Kolchak. Rockford Files/Kolchak: The Night Stalker crossover.


**The Halfback by Night**

With its familiar _click-CHUNK_ the answering machine picked up the incoming call he'd chosen to ignore. After his outgoing mes­sage and accompanying beep came a voice – a very nice female voice, but unfamiliar. "Jim?" she cooed in such a pleasing way that he nearly rose to take up the phone, but he waited, "Jim Rockford? This is Shelly with the March of Dimes. As much as we appreciate your recent donation, we're afraid the check you sent has bounced. The next time you're feeling charitable may we suggest B'Nai Brith?"

_CHUNK-whiirrrrrr-CHUNK_.

Rockford "hmmph"ed and re-crossed his long legs, tipping his boot heels up on the couch's arm. He hooked his thumbs into the belt of his slacks and made to close his eyes. The dull orange light behind the shades along with the crying of the gulls and the gentle lapping of waves past the walls of his trailer conspired with the prescription Per­codan to lull him into a drowse. A nap, sure, that sounded like a fine idea. Just an hour or so. He had just begun to gently snore when a dream-shattering pounding began at the metal-framed door to his modest domicile.

"Rocky?" he called out groggily though his brain cleared enough to realize this was unlikely. His dad had his own key, so who was this?

By the time he got to the door his skull was pounding again as it had for the past week and a half. He opened the trailer's door with one hand, the other pressing against the gauze patch above his left temple. On the other side of the threshold was the unexpected and not particularly welcome face of Angel Martin wearing the same half-smiling, half-twitchy expression that never bode well for his former cellmate and friend.

"Hey, Jimmy," Angel started, trying and failing to sound casual.

"Angel." Rockford rooted himself in the doorway in the super­stitious belief that he could ward off whatever trouble Angel was bringing him if he simply never let him in.

"Hey, you look better, man. Less banged-up anyway."

Rockford offered one of his wryest grins, "Glad you think so. What besides my general wellbeing brings you out this way, Angel?" His friend barely had a chance to open his mouth before Rockford threw up a pausing hand, "Actually, let me just stop you there. I'm really, genuinely not interested."

"Oh, hey – hey now, man," Angel protested, "I'm just, you know, I came by to check in on you. Because we're amigos and that's what amigos do. And, okay, maybe I need a favor."

"Uh-huh," Rockford nodded, already starting to close his door. Angel stopped it with a hand, his voice taking on the pleading tone that was its signature.

"Now just wait a minute, Jimmy!"

Rockford re-opened the door, just like he always did, but he knew he'd regret it.

Angel relaxed again, loosening his shoulders and running a hand through his bushy dark mop of hair as he explained. "No scam here, no angle - we're just talking a little, nothing favor. And, yes, I know the difference. All I need is a ride."

Rockford's eyebrows rose skeptically. "A ride?"

"I swear. Yeah, a ride."

"What happened to your car?"

"It kind of got repo'd. I took the bus here."

Rockford sighed, briefly looking skyward for deliverance, "Crimminy, Angel."

He retreated into the trailer just long enough to scoop up his car keys from the table, calling out as he circled back to the door, "Okay, where am I taking you?"

Angel smiled and clapped his hands once, already backing towards Rockford's Trans-Am. "The airport."

Rockford was locking the trailer behind him. "The airport? As in _LAX?_"

Angel was waiting at the passenger's side of the car, still grinning, "Yeah, and we better hurry up. I told her we'd meet her right off the plane."

The airport bar is a wonderful and necessary thing, Carl Kolchak was thinking. As are expense accounts. He knew that he was only hours away from a verbal beat down from his managing editor, a bull-necked, gap-toothed Italian gent who would be only too interested to learn how Kolchak had stretched a one-week, one story business trip into a two week, two story business trip replete with unplanned expenditures. Like a payout to replace a ruined local landmark. Or bail. Or the second scotch sitting in front of him. No, seeing Tony Vincenzo's face again wasn't going to be fun, but that was two time zones away. For the moment Kolchak was just enjoying his drink, the TVs above the bar, and the unending flow of living, breathing, chatting people coming and going to, he hoped, happier destinations than his.

The news was on, each of the bar's three TVs tuned to a differ­ent network, but no one, Kolchak included, seemed to mind the overlapping chatter. He was simply taking it all in, idly finding places for his eyes to rest and snatches of conversation to dip into – this was less his seasoned reporter's instincts and more basic, voyeur­istic human nature. He watched from across the room as the long-faced blonde with the sensible shoes firmly told her bald companion (Platonic friend? Boss?) to cut it out with the hands. _For the last time, no!_ He spent a few seconds studying the sad-looking old Japanese business traveler who sat at the end of the bar nursing a flat Coca-Cola, a tiny figure who seemed composed entirely of a baggy three-piece suit and huge glasses. He eavesdropped on the swarthy little guy and his tall, broad-shouldered pal who had stopped just inside of the bar's entrance way as they bickered mildly. _Whatever, Angel, you know where to find me._ Kolchak immediately assumed that "Angel" was the short guy's name and not some term of endearment, but then mentally checked himself: one never knew and this _was_ 1974 after all. 

It wasn't until one of the newscasts, the ABC affiliate, began its sports coverage that the bartender switched the other two TVs to the same channel and turned up the volume. Sports in general and foot­ball in particular had never been one of Kolchak's interests but he was still curious enough about this particular story to divert his full atten­tion that way.

The mustached sportscaster had deftly modulated his delivery between the extremes of enthusiasm needed for the day's scores and the respectful gravity appropriate for this piece, "And even though the season is months away, football has been at the forefront of many L.A. sports fans' minds in the wake of the horrific cult-related mass murder of former UCLA star halfback and Ram's rookie 'Stacker' Shoemaker and four members of the 'Godzilla Gang' defensive squad last Thursday night. We spoke briefly with Rams head coach Chuck Knox at last night's team-only memorial service for the slain players and found him promising the team's best season yet."

The screen switched to a video of the coach, in suit and tie, outside of a local church. "Well, you know, we owe it to the guys, to their memory, to push on and take it all the way." He went on, talking about "the hearts of champions", etc., but his words were obscured by a voice at Kolchak's right.

"Have they given the score of the Dodgers game yet?"

"Hm?", Kolchak turned to see "Angel's" friend, the taller of their Mutt and Jeff duo. From this angle, Kolchak couldn't help but notice the square bandage taped to the guy's temple overlapping a small section of his hair that had been shaved away. "Oh, uh, yeah. They beat the Astros one to zip."

"Not exactly a rout," Kolchak's next stool neighbor drawled, then hailed the bartender, "Could I get a Budweiser?"

Kolchak's eyebrows lifted and he tilted his open hand, "A win's a win, right?"

The dark-haired stranger with the head wound and open-collared shirt conceded with a nod as he collected his tall, frosted beer glass, "So it's been said."

They drank in a moment's silence broken by Kolchak's nod to airport etiquette.

"Where are you headed?"

His new acquaintance wiped at the beer foam on his upper lip, shaking his head in the process. "Nowhere. My friend's here to pick up his cousin and I'm just the chauffeur."

"Make sure he tips you," Kolchak dryly delivered which made the other guy snort.

"Yeah, knowing the friend I'd say that's less than likely."

Kolchak debated broaching the next topic for a decent handful of seconds before giving in to temptation. He pointed his glass at the stranger's bandage. "That looks like an interesting tale. Do you mind if I ask…?"

The stranger lifted a hand to the gauze as if he'd forgotten it was there. "Oh, that. A love tap from a live round. Occupational hazard."

He didn't even realize he'd done it but Kolchak had now rotated his stool so he was now directly facing his neighbor. "Are you a police officer?"

The guy slightly gagged on the sip of beer he was taking. "Uh, no. No, can't say as I have that distinction. I'm more your run of the mill snoop on retainer."

"A P.I., huh?" Kolchak grinned, "Nice to meet someone even less respected and beloved than those in my own humble profession."

"And what might that be?"

"Carl Kolchak, esteemed and ink-stained member of the noble Fourth Estate at your service."

The stranger sitting beside Kolchak smirked, "Wait a minute. Are you saying reporters rank higher in the public estimation than somebody in my line of work? I'd say that's six of one, half-dozen the other, my friend." He held out a big, tanned hand, "Jim Rockford."

Kolchak shook Rockford's hand, "Nice to meet you, Jim."

A few minutes of small talk later, Angel returned with a young woman in tow. Early 20s, probably, and very pretty. She, like Angel, was dark-haired and vaguely ethnic looking. She also seemed noticeably preoccupied and looked like she had just had a good cry in the bathroom. Angel introduced her as Valerie, his cousin from Brooklyn. Rockford made the token introduction of Kolchak, whose name made no impression on Angel but did cause Valerie to perk up slightly. 

"You got a relative works for the NYPD?" she asked in the thick patois of her homeland, "Bald guy? Detective, I think."

Kolchak replied in the negative while Angel joined in worriedly, "Hey, kiddo? Why do you know anything about New York cops?"

"It's not what you think, Ev. This guy, he was just on the news – some big bust."

This rang a bell for Kolchak. "Oh, yeah, I do know who you're talking about. He's kind of a celeb cop in the Big Apple - pops up on the AP wires from time to time. But his name is 'Kojak' which is Greek, I believe, whereas we 'Kolchak's hail from the wilds of Romania - by way of County Cork, that is." He lifted his tacky straw porkpie hat to display his tousled, flyaway brown hair, "Besides, as you can clearly see, full as the day of my humble birth."

She smiled for a second, but it was a fleeting thing. Both the P.I. and the reporter, seasoned in their relative disciplines, couldn't help but notice the anxious expression returning to Valerie's features. Rockford was the only one who felt compelled to address the issue while, for his part, Kolchak respectfully returned to glancing at the TV and listening to the departure reminders being broadcast over the airport PA.

Rockford leaned in towards the girl and asked in a concerned but discreet tone, "Are you okay, honey?"

Angel and his cousin shared a look and he quickly stepped in, still twitchy and still wheedling, but in a far more sympathetic manner. "Yeah, Jimmy, listen, that's – that's kinda part two of the favor."

Rockford gritted his teeth and ducked his head, "Angel, I swear…"

"No, no listen, see, this is right up your alley and the kid, she's got nobody else to turn to."

There was a slight hiss of air from Rockford's tightened lips as he slapped a hand to the back of his neck. He softened and locked onto Valerie's wet eyes, "Okay, understand I'm not promising any­thing but why don't you give me an idea what Angel is about to talk me into doing for you?"

"It - It's my boyfriend."

Rockford's shoulders ever so imperceptibly drooped. Valerie kept going.

"He – Everybody keeps telling me he's dead, but I know he's not!" Fresh tears sprung from her eyes and she lowered her face in her hands. Angel wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"I'm sorry," Rockford said, "maybe I'm just slow on the up­take. Who's telling you your boyfriend's dead?"

"_Everybody!_ His family, his team, the cops, the people on the news. Everybody I talk to saying the same thing, like they're all in on it! But I know he's alive! I know it!"

Kolchak knew it wasn't his place to eavesdrop, but his glass was empty and the only thing on TV was a miniature chuck wagon being chased by a dog; he angled himself on the stool and listened in as Rockford tried to sound sympathetic and skeptical concurrently.

"You have to know this all sounds a little unlikely, don't you?" Valerie gulped and hitched her head as confirmation. "Now, why don't you tell me something about this boyfriend and how he died."

Angel stepped in again, sparing his cousin, "You heard of him, Jimmy, plays pro ball for the Rams – 'Stacker' Shoemaker – he was one of the-"

Kolchak practically hopped off his stool, joining the conver­sation without invitation, "I'm sorry, excuse me, are you – are you saying you're Clayton 'Stacker' Shoemaker's girlfriend?"

Rockford himself seemed thrown. "Wait just a minute, the Rams halfback who just got-?"

Kolchak picked it up, "Who got his throat ripped out in his own apartment last week?"

Angel looked green while Valerie turned hurt, red eyes Kolchak's way, "That's what they keep saying! But they're wrong!"

"For your sake I wish that were true," Kolchak replied, his

voice taking on the smooth, faux-sympathetic tone that he'd used with hundreds of victims and witnesses in his day, "but I'm afraid it's not."

"How do you know?" asked Angel and Valerie simulta­neously.

"I … have it on good authority," Kolchak dodged.

Valerie's voice raised, a new wave of hysteria threatening, "Then how do you explain the call?"

Kolchak was innocently nonplused, "I don't-"

Angel nudged Valerie and indicated Rockford, "Go ahead, Val, tell him."

Valerie squared her shoulders and fought to keep her voice steady, "How do you explain, if he's been dead a week, the long-dis­tance phone call I got from Clay just two days ago?"

The quartet made the baggage check before it occurred to Rockford to inquire after Kolchak's travel plans, "Carl, didn't you say you were waiting on a plane to Chicago?"

"Uh, yes – yes, I was," Kolchak responded, "They, however, didn't wait for me." Smiling sheepishly, "Final boarding call was about seven minutes ago."

"What?"

Kolchak leveled with the tall P.I., "If it's all the same to you and Ms. …?"

"Me?" Valerie picked up. "Martin. Valerie Martin."

"If it's alright with Ms. Martin here, I thought I might stay in town a little longer. A good story is the best medicine for a terminally bellicose managing editor."

Valerie only too readily came back, "Whatever. I don't care. I just want this whole thing laid to rest."

For his part, Rockford took a moment longer, eyeing Kolchak like he was a sink full of filthy dishes and wondering if it was worth the effort. "Okay by me," he finally said, handing Valerie's bags off to Angel, "but everybody chips in for gas."

Between LAX's parking lot and the motel off the PCH that Kolchak said would suit him and his limited funds just fine, both Rockford and his new acquaintance in the seersucker suit plied Angel's cousin for more information and background. Her story, coming out tear-clotted and pained, was that of a typical college romance that had entered a long-distance limbo as neither party had quite the resolution or the desire to finally sever ties permanently. Valerie had met Clay the previous fall at the start of their fourth year at UCLA. They had dated exclusively through her final thesis on "The Metric System in Secondary Education" and through his star senior season with the Bruins and subsequent drafting into the NFL. As Valerie told it, the pair had been deeply in love and had talked of marrying later in the year, after the season had ended. But Valerie had to return to Brooklyn before graduation to look after an ailing aunt and Clay had to stay behind to start working with the Rams and that, sadly, was where things stood. There had been a few letters and phone calls, but they were always short and Clay was always running off somewhere. Until Saturday when Valerie came back to her apartment from a week's jaunt to the Catskills with her aunt to find a stack of newspapers and a tape full of calls on her answering machine saying the same terrible thing over and over again: that "Stacker" Shoemaker was slain in his own apartment along with four of his teammates by members of some Satanic cult called the "Dark Star Coven." Valerie had fainted in the middle of her dining room amidst the linoleum tile and a scattering of mail.

"When I came to," Valerie continued, her voice getting scratchy and raw, "I immediately grabbed up the phone and started calling whoever I could. Friends of ours from school, the guys on his team. I just wanted to know more but they were no help. I called the police but unless you're a family member they won't tell you any­thing! His family…" She stopped, forcing down a big swallow and composing herself. "That's the worst part of all. When I finally got numbers for the Shoemakers and I called and said, 'This is Valerie Martin – Clay's girlfriend', they said, 'Who? We never heard him talk about a Valerie.'"

There was a sympathetic, awkward pause cut short by Angel, "You know, kid, they probably just forgot and – and they were grieving-"

This didn't seem to placate Valerie, who continued, "Even worse, they had had the funeral that very day. Nobody invited me – the love of my life gets planted in the ground and nobody knows to find me or have me there. It took a couple of days but I scrounged some money together – got a loan from Angel-" At this, Rockford shot a skeptical look at his friend in the back seat. "-and I booked my flight – this was the earliest I could get here."

"What about the call?" Rockford interjected, "You mentioned that you heard from Clay two days ago?"

"Yeah, while I was packing. I was already a wreck and then the phone rang."

Kolchak asked, "You know what time this was?"

"It was late Monday night – probably around 12:30."

Kolchak nodded, "So 9:30 California time."

Rockford wondered for a moment what conclusion it was that Kolchak had just drawn for himself before getting Valerie back on track, "What did he say, Valerie?"

"He was kind of freaked out, said he couldn't talk long. He said he knew what I must be hearing but he wanted me to know that he was okay. He said he hadn't felt so good in his whole life, in fact, and that all he wished is that I could be with him-" Tears streamed down her face anew but this time they ran silently, Valerie's voice remaining a numb monotone, "He said, 'I love you, Val baby, and I can't wait to show you how much'. And that was it. I couldn't breathe for the longest time."

"Are you sure it was really him?" asked Rockford.

Valerie found his eyes in the rearview mirror to gravely make her point, "He sounded kind of … odd, but it was definitely him."

"I'm only saying there are some freaks out there," Rockford continued, "might think it's a kick to impersonate a dead man and torture his loved ones."

"A sick joke, right?" Valerie said, "That's exactly what the Shoemakers accused me of when I called to tell them that Clay was still alive."

The following day started off cool and grayish yellow as the thick layer of smog held out against the Pacific breezes for the first several hours of the morning. It was going to be a hot one, typical weather for L.A. in the middle of May. At their pre-appointed time, Rockford rapped at Kolchak's room door and was answered promptly by the reporter in the same clothes from the day before, daubing at his still-wet face with a motel towel.

"Hey, Jim, gimme a minute, would ya?"

"Sure," Rockford replied, entering the room while Kolchak finished his ablutions with a toss of the towel to the edge of the room's tiny sink. "Couldn't help but notice that you're in yesterday's duds."

Kolchak frowned as he grabbed for his coat, "Ah, yeah. The cost of making last minute changes to one's itinerary. My luggage made the long journey home without me. But not to worry, the stuff that's washable got washed last night in the motel Laundromat. I will do my best not to offend."

"That's okay," Rockford responded, "I was in jail for a stretch, it'd take a lot more than ripe socks to offend me."

"Yeah? Prison, huh?" the reporter's curiosity, as reflexive a response as a knee-jerk under a doctor's mallet.

Rockford couldn't help but smile at Kolchak's expression, "Wrongfully accused. Long story there and one that doesn't help Valerie Martin's case in the slightest."

Kolchak, never one for dropping a subject of any stripe, none­theless ceded the topic by grabbing his hat and the two carry-on items that stayed behind, his camera and his box-like Sony "cassette corder" which he slung over his shoulder, "Understood. Shall we?"

Rockford's bronze Trans-Am carried them east on the 405, away from the blue-green ocean, heading ever further into the sprawl of Los Angeles.

"I've got a line on the police reports of the murders and the autopsies of all the victims but it may be tomorrow before I get a hold of them."

"That's fine," Kolchak said through a yawn he'd attempted to stifle.

With a brief sidelong glance at his new partner, Rockford commented, "Too early for you, Carl?"

"Hm?", Kolchak returned, "Oh – no. I just … don't sleep well of late."

"Insomnia?"

"Fear of the dark," Kolchak said, his delivery suggesting a joke but his eyes as serious as the grave.

Kolchak turned his head back to his window to watch the boggling and unrelenting traffic and, though unsure of their desti­nation, appreciated Rockford's deft navigation nonetheless.

In answer to Kolchak's unspoken question, Rockford announced, "Assuming for the moment that Valerie might have been mixed up about that call she says she got, I figured we'd start by checking in with the folks who got the last best look at 'Stacker' Shoemaker."

"The morgue?" Kolchak chimed in.

"Bingo," replied Rockford as he steered the car towards the Westwood exit.

The second the ink had dried on his first check as an L.A. Ram, Clayton Shoemaker bought – not rented, but bought – a penthouse apartment in the Fairchild building, one of the most exclusive resi­dential buildings in the upscale mini-city of Westwood. To the press, he'd said he just wanted to be close to the UCLA campus where it had all begun but to his friends he'd admitted it was all about the ready supply of "hot young bods."

And when Clayton Shoemaker died, his mortal remains were brought to the UCLA Medical Center which had also seen its share of hot young bods.

Kolchak liked this observation and mentally filed it away as material for the story he would write later. Though he also decided he might have to edit out the adjective "hot"; if there was one thing these gray and green halls of the Medical Center's morgue suggested, it certainly wasn't warmth of any kind.

At the end of the corridor were the small desk and the small attendant that the helpful nurse upstairs had told them they would find. The second the tiny fellow with the inordinately large white man's afro looked up from his monotonous and blank-eyed working over of his hairdo with a black plastic pick topped by a clenched fist, Rockford kicked into gear.

"Wally, right? Nurse Reynolds upstairs said you were the man to see," his smile was friendly and as genuine as a best buddy's, "I'm Pete Thompson with the FBPR." And like a birthday party magi­cian, Rockford snapped forth a business card between the index and middle fingers of his right hand. Kolchak fought back a smirk at this as he'd witnessed Rockford set and print that card with the miniature press in his car's trunk just ten minutes earlier. It was a nice gimmick if the ink didn't smudge.

Wally read the card aloud, "'Federal Bureau of Pathology Review'? I haven't heard of you guys."

"Not surprising," Rockford smoothly rolled on, "seeing as how your board of directors has blocked our attempts to do a proper review of this facility since '68."

"What are you reviewing?" Wally asked, still hedging a mild suspicion.

"Just the morgue itself, an overview of your equipment and practices."

Kolchak took the ball, "Sanitary conditions, sterile instru­ments, proper, uh, refrigeration. Quality control."

"Exactly right," Rockford never missed a beat, "My associate Dave here and I just take a look around, ask a couple of questions, and we're out of your, eh, hair."

Rockford's involuntary comment escaped Wally's notice as the orderly kept right on raking his afro, finally rising from his chair and indicating they follow him through the morgue's doors.

"Whatever," he said flatly, "You're not gonna find anything out of whack in there."

"That's what we like to hear," Kolchak assured as he and Rockford entered the library-like quiet of the huge room of fluores­cent light and shiny stainless steel.

Wally had propped himself against the wall, arms crossed, "Well, let me put it this way, we don't get a lot of complaints."

Rockford grinned; it was a better opening than any he could've asked for. He turned to Wally and confronted him with the photo of Clayton Shoemaker Valerie had given him. "That's not exactly true, Wally. Recognize him?"

"Him? Yeah," Wally answered, looking unsure again, "That's Stacker. He came through here last week."

"Were you here when they brought him in?" Kolchak asked.

"Not right then, no, but my shift started while they were still doing the autopsy."

"And it was him exactly?" Rockford pressed, "This exact person in the photo here? No doubt in your mind?"

Wally was growing more confused and uneasy, "Yeah, man, yeah. Clay Shoemaker of the Rams. I had a poli-sci class with him two years ago."

Rockford's eyes squinted slightly as he came in closer to the orderly, "Look, I'm gonna be perfectly honest with you, Wally. The Bureau got called in to investigate this specific case. Seems the family of the deceased was less than pleased with the handling of his body."

Kolchak aided in the unnerving of their previously apathetic host by quickly snapping a shot of Wally as his mouth opened word­lessly for a second, "I – 'Handling?' Nobody was handling his- I mean, they had him on the table, but-!"

"Right, right, about that," Kolchak said, "would you say it was a typical autopsy?"

"What?" said Wally, hopelessly lost and outnumbered by this point. Rockford himself wasn't exactly sure where Kolchak was headed but he appreciated the reporter's enthusiastic involvement in the "interrogation."

"The autopsy on Clayton Shoemaker, would you say it was a textbook, seen-one-seen 'em-all, no surprises procedure?"

Wally shot a quick glance towards the hospital phone affixed to the wall just a few feet away, unfortunately on the other side of the inspector calling himself "Pete Thompson" who might as well have been Mt. Everest to the 5'2" (with fro) morgue attendant. "I don't know, sure. It's not like I was in the room. I heard some stuff later-"

"Stuff?" asked a puzzled Rockford.

Kolchak pounced, "Elaborate please on said 'stuff?'"

There was no use, Wally's shoulders dropped and he finally gave in to the two-pronged inquisition. He sighed.

"Supposedly the wounds didn't match up with the story the cops were selling. Stacker's throat wasn't slashed, it was more like … _chewed on_, or something."

Rockford's eyebrows shot up and his head ducked back in an expression of sheer blindsided surprise. He was equally caught off-guard by the lack of a similar response in his partner; Kolchak, he noticed, only nodded intently.

"And the blood - " Wally continued.

Rockford snapped out of it, redirecting his attention to the orderly, "Uh. What about the blood?"

"There wasn't any."

In the interest of pure thoroughness, Rockford and Kolchak paid a visit to the Crisman Funeral Home where they established that the body received from UCLA Medical Center and which subse­quently made its way into a powder blue, stainless-steel EternaSlumber casket was, in fact, an exact match of the beefy blonde football hero smiling thickly out of Valerie Martin's photo. Afterwards they mutually decided that lunch was next on the agenda. As they drove, Rockford's mind was elsewhere. He had been quietly sorting through the facts and impressions he'd been collecting over the last day and there was something about his new partner that wasn't sitting level. Kolchak was by all means an amiable and quick-witted guy, but Rockford had a pretty good nose for hidden agendas. He would keep his suspicions to himself for now, if only for Valerie's sake.

The place was a diner on La Cienega called Norm's. They made their way to a booth against a window, rays of brilliant yellow afternoon sunlight slanting through it from outside. Telling Kolchak to order a meatloaf sandwich and Coke for him, Rockford excused himself while he made for the payphone. He put in a quick call to Angel, inviting him and Valerie (if they could find a ride) to join them for a status report. Next was a call to the secretary of Mr. Warren Jameson, the very wealthy entrepreneur who'd recently hired him to dig into the background of his prospective son-in-law. He didn't have any news for him yet, but Rockford knew it was smart to keep his paying clients in the loop no matter how much progress had been made. And lastly he rang up his buddy in the LAPD, Sgt. Dennis Becker, in order to ask a favor. This didn't come as a surprise for Becker since, other than the occasional fishing trip invite, Jim's calls were always about a favor. He was a little taken aback when Rockford requested a phone log of all calls placed to a Brooklyn phone number for the day and night of May 13th. 

"What?" Becker replied, "That's a pretty tall order, Jim. Especially with no whys or wherefores. You may not have noticed, but Brooklyn is just slightly outside my jurisdiction."

"This ties into the Shoemaker case."

"What case, Jim? Five pro ballplayers got killed by some tripped-out, hippy Satanists – we got signed confessions and two of the nut jobs in lockup - end of story. Shoemaker's case is closed."

This was a familiar dance and Rockford knew Becker would fold. "Those are my specialty, Dennis, says so right in my ad."

It took another couple of minutes of back and forth before Becker, with a heavy, put-upon sigh said he'd do what he could.

When he returned to their booth Rockford found Kolchak sipping at a cup of black coffee and poring over that day's Los Angeles Times. Rockford noted that he was specifically combing through the local crime section.

"Keeping up with your distinguished competition, Carl?"

Kolchak looked up and smirked, "Uh, in a way. But I'm mainly interested to see if Stacker Shoemaker's murder is an isolated occurrence or if there might have been any similar deaths under circum­stances just as mysterious."

Rockford took his seat and lifted his Coke, "Let's hope not. I can't afford to take on anymore pro bono work."

Kolchak perked up at this, "You know, I've always wondered about your profession."

"The glamorous world of snooping?"

"Inelegantly put, but yes," said Kolchak, "On the face of it, it's pretty similar to what I do. A lot of legwork, developing contacts, picking up the little clues that get dropped intentionally or not."

"Well, yeah, I guess there _are_ similarities," Rockford replied, "Now, I can't speak for the paper biz but the best part of my line of work is in tying it all together, fitting all the seemingly unrelated pieces, finding the connections until it all makes sense. That's when I sleep easy, when I've got the stories straight, when the world makes sense ... as much as it ever does, I mean."

Kolchak nodded, "See, what I envy is that while we of the press just present information, you investigators act on it; you get to solve the problem, wrap things up in a pretty bow. That's something I- Let's just say that I've found myself – once or twice – more involved in a story than I should have been and I have to admit it's a nice feeling when you have a direct, positive affect on the outcome."

"Sure, that can make the busted jaws and severed brake lines almost worth it."

Undeterred by Rockford's sarcasm, Kolchak continued, "I hope you don't mind my asking, but what kind of a living do you make?"

Rockford smirked, "Thinking of trading sideways, Carl?"

"Curiosity, that's all," Kolchak replied.

"Well, curiosity helps. Up to a point. And no, I don't mind you asking," Rockford said, distracted momentarily by the arrival of their lunches. His meatloaf sandwich plate being slid in front of him by a sour-faced waitress. He resumed, "I don't happen to have my W2 on me right now, but I do alright. My rate is 200 a day plus ex­penses."

"Say, that sounds pretty good," Kolchak responded through a mouthful of the BLT he'd ordered.

"Yeah, it does," Rockford agreed, "but keep in mind I'm not the only P.I. in town. There are some very dry spells. This, however, is not one of them."

Kolchak tipped his coffee cup as a salute, "Well here's to that. May Man's inexhaustible passion for larceny, duplicity, infidelity and barbarism keep our coffers full from here to the clarion call of Judgment Day."

Rockford didn't return the salute. "You really that cynical, Carl?"

"You got me, Jim," Kolchak said with a smirk, spreading his hands in a surrender gesture, "I'm giving Man too much credit."

"How so?"

"Well, I've seen a lot of evidence to suggest that when it comes to the doing of evil, Man has some outside help."

Rockford opened his mouth to reply, but thought better of it and stuck a cottage fry in it instead.

By the time they'd finished off lunch and were debating chasing it with a piece of pie, Angel and Valerie had arrived and joined them in the booth. They shuffled seats, Kolchak joining Rockford on one side of the booth so both could face Valerie who seemed little better than the day before. Rockford noticed that the cuticles of all ten of her fingers were scabbed and raw from nervous chewing.

"Jimmy, Mr. Kolchak," Angel started, "what have you got for us?"

Rockford began by addressing Angel, but quickly moved his gaze to Valerie – she was the one who needed to hear this. "Now, keep in mind this was just a day's worth of digging but the news – well, the news is gonna be hard to hear."

Valerie inhaled sharply but didn't interject or look away.

"We've been to the morgue and the funeral home, we've got police reports on the way, and the all facts line up: Clay Shoemaker is dead. I'm sorry, honey."

"But I got- He _called_ me Monday night," Valerie insisted.

"It's like I said before," Rockford proceeded gently, "that could've been anybody who knew you two had been together, some sicko with a warped sense of humor. But I'm looking into that too. It's a slim chance, but if we can nail somebody for making that call, maybe then you can accept that Clay's really gone."

Kolchak simply watched on in mute appreciation of Rockford's tactful and forthright manner in dealing with this bereaved, grasping young woman.

Angel had an arm draped around Valerie's shoulders as she again burst into tears, covering her pretty face with her hands. "Maybe-" he started, ignoring Rockford's warning glance, "Maybe he's being held by that Coven. Y'know, like what happened with that Hearst girl. Like he's brainwashed or something."

Rockford's voice dropped to an unfriendly level, "Angel, I just got through saying that Shoemaker's been in the ground since Sunday. Maybe you didn't hear me."

"He could've been switched, man" Angel continued and now Valerie was raising her head to listen, "Yeah, it could've been a double – or – or – maybe they only made it look like he was dead so they could come back for him later and, like, zombify him."

Rockford's eyes closed for a second as he released a small sigh, "What do you think of Angel's 'zombie theory', Carl?"

"Actually," Kolchak replied from behind his coffee cup, "I don't think it works that way." Three sets of eyes pinned him. "From what I gather."

"Okay, right, right, it's just one of 'Angel's crazy ideas'," said Angel while grabbing fries off of Rockford's plate, "But one of these days, Jimmy, you'll figure out I'm onto something. There's a lot goin' on out there that even a sharp guy like you couldn't guess at."

"Sure, Angel. And where did you park your UFO, by the way?"

Angel, chewing on his pilfered food, acknowledged the dig with a wry smile and a nod. Kolchak was looking at Angel with an expression that could've almost been appreciation before his attention shifted to the poor girl at Angel's side, slumped in the booth in shell-shocked near-catatonia.

"You know," Kolchak began gingerly, "There's still only one way to know for sure – for absolutely, 100-percent positive sure – that Clayton Shoemaker is 'neath the sod."

Valerie and Angel looked up. Rockford asked for the check.

The remaining hours of the day passed uneventfully. Kolchak and Rockford split up after lunch, with Kolchak suggesting they rendez­vous at 8:30 that night. Taking advantage of the time spent apart from his new partner, Kolchak used the diner's pay phone to make some preliminary calls to the police and coroner regarding a couple of the suspicious deaths he'd read about in the paper. In each case he posed as an AP stringer following up on those stories – _just a few more questions, if you don't mind, regarding the state of the bodies; what is the current theory about the massive blood loss in the victim? Any idea where it might've gone?_ Each flustered, "Who told you there was massive blood loss?", "No comment." and sudden dial-tone told Kolchak more than any direct answer could have. A couple of hours later, he was met by the attractive real estate agent he'd made the acquaintance of when he first came to L.A. Faye Kruger was a bright, chatty redhead with pretensions of being a writer that two weeks of being Kolchak's girl Friday had effectively doused. Still, she came when he called and was happy, if surprised, to see that he hadn't made it back to Chicago just yet. She offered to make him dinner at her place and Kolchak smoothly pointed out that dinner was still hours off. What could they possibly do to fill the time? 

When 7:15 rolled around and Kolchak finally rose from Faye's bed it was too late for her promise of a home-cooked meal. She stirred beside him and nudged at his "love handles" with her bare foot while he pulled on a sock. "Where do you think you're going, lover boy?" she asked, grinning at him sexily.

"The graveyard, actually," Kolchak returned with what he hoped was a charming grin, "Do you think I could borrow your car?"

He'd been able to stop by an In-N-Out burger stand on the way and now food wrappers decorated the floor of Faye's Chevette. Using a gas station map, Kolchak found his way into the hills of Burbank and, specifically, to the gates of Forest Lawn Cemetery, the final resting place of many a famous name. On this Thursday night, though, it was just a well-groomed hillside flattened into dull shades of gray-blue by a not quite half-moon. A few hundred yards past the gates, Kolchak came upon Rockford's Trans-Am parked along the shoulder and the detective himself propped against the hood with his arms folded across his chest. He greeted Kolchak by saying, "This is just about the most ill-advised, most likely pointless exercise I've been mixed up in since – well, since the last one."

"Right, but you're here," Kolchak reasoned, "so you must have some lingering questions or doubts that only concrete proof will settle. Right? So let's pick our spot and get inside."

Rockford held up a halting hand. "Just a second, Carl. There's a good chance our little partnership ends right here."

Like he'd just walked into a shut door, Kolchak's face went stiff with surprise, "What? Is this about-? Look, they've got one guard in a golf cart patrolling this place on the hour, if, that is, he hasn't nodded off in the guard shack by the time Johnny Carson's finished his monologue. We won't get caught."

"That's not it," Rockford stated and, even in the deepening dark, Kolchak could read the seriousness in the set of his features. "I got the police reports of the 'Dark Star Coven Murders' this after­noon."

Kolchak's eyebrows shot up and he nodded slowly. "Oh. And you – you read them already I take it?"

"Yeah," said Rockford. "See, I had the feeling all along that there must've been more to your interest in this case than just a high-profile murder story or some good-hearted concern for poor Valerie Martin."

"Now, be fair, Jim. There's nothing saying my interest can't be complex and multi-layered. I happen to care greatly for how this resolves for Ms. Martin-"

"You were there, Carl," Rockford interjected, "at the crime scene. Last Tuesday night five pro jocks got brutally killed in a swanky penthouse apartment and the only living witness to the inci­dent was a third rate reporter from a Chicago news wire named Carl Kolchak."

Kolchak reeled, "_Third rate?_"

"It didn't occur to you to maybe, oh, I don't know, _share_ this snippet of information with me up front?"

"Look, I don't know what version of the facts you read in those reports-"

"Let's just say you don't come off so well," Rockford inter­jected.

Kolchak was squeezing his chin as he ceded the point with a nod, "Yeah, I imagine. Who signed off on those – Lieutenant Mateo?" 

"The very same."

"I don't know if you've ever dealt with that gent-"

Rockford nodded, "Pompous little twerp with an Ivy League accent."

Kolchak pointed a finger at Rockford, "That's the very guy. Now would you say – as somebody who's had dealings with the local constabulary – that Mateo is a stalwart public servant whose primary allegiance is to the public good?"

"Mateo?" Rockford admitted, "Mateo's a company man, toes the line, does what he can to ensure he keeps his detective's pension."

"Ah-_ha!_" Kolchak exclaimed, "So you, yourself, would admit that Lt. Mateo might be inclined to promote and propagate whatever theory his bosses felt the public needed to hear, even if that theory was a pure fabrication. A bedtime story of devil-worshippers with drug-fueled super-strength and butcher knives, for instance."

"The coven members copped to the murders, or don't you read the papers," Rockford quipped.

"Sure, suuure," Kolchak expounded, "and those confessions were obtained how exactly? Maybe after a little excessive force perhaps? Or a day or two of withdrawal symptoms in lockup?"

"If you're trying to imply that the LAPD may have, on occasion, _leaned_ on their suspects a little hard or purposely fudged a report now and again - for whatever reason – then you're not telling me anything I don't already know," said Rockford, "But if you think I'm just gonna throw in with a guy who's managed to get himself un­officially exiled from three major American cities-"

"They had that in there, huh?" Kolchak said, sounding like a bashful reprobate in the principal's office. "Good to know they did their research."

Rockford just uttered an "uh-huh." The temperature was dropping and a night wind snaked around the hillside.

"You'll get it, Jim, the whole story for better or worse, I swear. But first you've got to believe me that this is serious business and there are going to be more Valerie Martins out there getting the worst news of their lives."

"What are you getting at, Carl?" Rockford demanded, his voice tinged with impatience; he'd never developed a taste for the cryptic.

For Carl Kolchak, however, such was his stock and trade. "We do this thing and then I'll fill in every blank, you have my word. What do you say, Jim?"

There was a moment's pause as many, many possible answers to that question ping-ponged through Jim Rockford's mind, most of them involving Kolchak taking long walks off of short piers. Before he opened his mouth to respond, Rockford mentally calculated how quickly he could get home if he took the 101 as opposed to the 405 as well as trying to remember if he still had any beers in the fridge.

"I'll get the shovels," he finally said in the resigned voice of the instantly regretful.

With a fair amount of dexterity for men of their advancing years, they boosted themselves over the top of the stone wall of the cemetery grounds, each landing with a grunt on the soft grass awaiting on the other side. Kolchak, somehow, managed not to lose his hat or his ever-present camera. They collected the shovels they had chucked over in advance, took their bearings as best they could in the darkness and then hustled off in what Rockford decided was the direction of "Stacker" Shoemaker's final resting place.

The verbal walkthrough he'd received over the phone from a nice woman in the cemetery's office had been quite good, though finding their way through the gridiron of headstones in the pale blue moonlight was a different matter for Rockford and associate. It took them nearly ten minutes to wend their way to the right spot, but soon they found themselves at a three-foot tall slab of marble that declared under their flashlight beams:

CLAYTON "STACKER" SHOEMAKER

1951 1974

"_He plays for God's team now."_

Kolchak dryly commented on the adornment atop the head­stone – a cement football. "Nice touch."

"Yeah," Rockford agreed as he removed his sport coat and began rolling up his sleeves. Kolchak followed suit and passed Rockford one of the shovels.

Kolchak removed the first earth, finding it soft and easily managed, no doubt due to the newness of the grave. He stopped before going back for his second shovelful when he noticed Rockford paused and frowning at the patch of ground under his feet. "What is it, Jim?"

Rockford shook his head, "Nothing. I just realized this is the second grave I've plundered in a month."

Kolchak's eyebrows shot up. "Oh?"

"Yeah. Only last time," he continued, finally digging in with one foot jamming the shovel into the ground, "I ended up with a bullet creasing my skull."

Kolchak, as ever, was piqued. As they continued to dig, Rockford spun a tale of a statuesque mobster's girl, a faked death and a coffin full of tax-free money. The story of the bandage gracing Rockford's temple. When Rockford got to that point of the story he reached up to touch the bandage but found it had fallen off, likely due to the sweat that bathed his forehead. As the wound was nearly completely healed, Rockford wouldn't worry about it. Besides, the pale pink scar made for a better illustration of his recent mis­adventures. Kolchak just shook his head; it was a good story and, unlike so many of Kolchak's own, one that people would believe.

Two and a half hours later, time completely undisturbed by any security drive-bys, Rockford's shovel glanced off something solid and hard. The two men, now filthy and drenched in sweat, shared a look. They scraped the last few inches of dirt away from the surface of the casket and carved out enough of a trench on either side to clear the latches of the lid. Rockford pulled a bandana from his back pocket and raised it to his nose and mouth in anticipation and noticed, pointedly, that Kolchak made no such preparations. Kolchak leaned forward to examine the seals on the lid's "top" quarter and showed Rockford by flashlight that the latches had been snapped. When Kolchak pulled upwards on the lid section, it came open easily and practically detached from the rest of the box, the still shiny metal of its pins wrenched from some mysterious force. And inside the casket was nothing but an empty bed of shimmering white satin and air only slightly laced with the stink of dead flesh. Rockford absorbed all this but couldn't keep his eyes from the underside of the casket's lid which bore the track marks of fingernails raked through the satin and knuckles imprinted into the steel. But no blood. Rockford shivered lightly and told himself it was a response to the wind chilling him through his damp shirt. The sudden pop of a flashbulb startled him.

Kolchak was snapping pictures of the empty casket, nodding as he did so. When he looked up to Rockford it was with a strange, adrenaline-fueled light in his eyes, "And I'll bet you 200 dollars a day plus expenses that if you lean on the director of this place, he'll admit they found much the same thing Monday night but chose to quietly fill the grave back in."

"Because a missing body is bad for business," Rockford muttered.

"Exactly," Kolchak concurred.

Rockford's head pounded and he leaned against the wall of the hole, "Why Monday?"

Kolchak was placing the lid back onto the casket, meeting Rockford's eyes. "Because they rise after three days."

A voice which each of the men was fairly sure belonged to neither of them disrupted the eerie calm of their hole in the ground, "HEY!"

Rockford and Kolchak immediately scrambled. "Godammit!" Rockford hissed as he used the coffin for a stepping stone and hoisted himself out of the grave, Kolchak right behind. They hastily grabbed for their discarded coats and ran. There was a pair of small head­lights bobbing along the hill, weaving towards their position with the soft electric purr of a golf cart motor.

"HEY YOU! STOP!" the security guard, who was neither as little nor old as Kolchak had promised, somewhat rotely bellowed.

Rockford and Kolchak made their way back towards the wall encircling the enormous cemetery, hearing from behind them as the security guard walkie-talkied to his partner back at the guard shack that there was a situation that required backup and the police. Kolchak, to Rockford's surprise, sprinted into the lead.

They had made it to the wall and were bolting over it by the time the security guard's cart rocked to a stop and he rejoined the chase on foot. He was only yards away. Rockford hoped he wasn't armed.

A gunshot broke the night wide open just as Rockford's head dropped below the rim of the wall. _So much for hoping_, Rockford thought.

On the other side of the wall, within feet of Rockford's car, the two men started to separate until Rockford grabbed Kolchak's arm. "Get in the car!" Rockford barked.

"What?" Kolchak panted, "But what about-?"

"STOP RIGHT THERE, YOU PRICKS!" the guard shouted from his position – arms and head peeking above the top of the wall. He punctuated with a gunshot that pinged off the gravel between Rockford and Kolchak's feet.

"Get in the car!" Kolchak suddenly parroted as he shoved Rockford towards the Trans-Am's driver's side.

In the seconds it took the guard to gain his footing on the out­side of the wall, Kolchak had leapt into Rockford's car while the detective gunned it to life. They peeled off down the sloping hill road bordering the cemetery, passing Faye's abandoned Chevette on the way. The guard fired one last shot at their wheels but missed.

Rockford didn't turn on his lights or slow down until they merged onto the 101.

"Cripes!" Kolchak expelled at last, breathing deep and shooting a look through the car's back window, "Faye is going to be less than pleased when the cops knock on her door tomorrow."

Rockford still looked grim and riveted to the road in front of him. His voice rolled with the terse drawl that seemed most promi­nent when Rockford was stressed, "You can call her when we get back, coach her to tell the cops she broke down and thumbed her way home. There's nothing tying that car to us, so she'll be alright."

Kolchak sat back in his seat, tilting his hat to the top of his fore­head, "Yeah – yeaaah, that's right. Good."

Diverting his gaze from the road long enough to pin Kolchak in an unfriendly stare, Rockford stated edgily, "Now then, this is where you 'fill in the blanks' while I try very hard not to toss you out of here at 80 miles per hour."

Kolchak looked offended, "Jim! I said I would and I will!"

Rockford now squinted in concentration, "That scene back there didn't surprise you in the least. You knew exactly what we would find out there from the get-go, didn't you?"

"I had a good idea, yeah," Kolchak admitted.

"Uh-huh. _So where the hell is Clay Shoemaker?_"

Kolchak looked dumbfounded, "That I don't know. But we need to find out, and soon."

Rockford slid his eyes sideways, simmering, and Kolchak picked up, "But I _do_ know some things about our missing dead man, facts that probably aren't gracing the police reports you read."

"Such as?"

"Well, for instance, Stacker wasn't exactly the squeaky-clean All-American football hero his press – and his girlfriend – make him out to be. He liked women," Kolchak stated with the proper inflec­tion, "he liked them _a lot_. And he knew a lot of them."

Rockford frowned, "I know that. I did some asking around yesterday – his teammates, his college buddies. I'm not surprised no one outside his inner circle ever heard of Valerie; it seems he was stringing her along from a distance. She was a fallback while he played the field."

"Right, well," Kolchak nodded, "Then maybe you also found out that Clay occasionally liked to hire ladies for companionship. A boy has his appetites and Stacker's ran towards thin girls with long dark hair."

"I noticed that too," Rockford said, "looking at the yearbook pictures of girls he had been dating. They all looked like Valerie."

"Here's a name you didn't come across: Catherine Rawlins," Kolchak said, his voice dropping to a lower register as if he were worried about being overheard. "Slender beauty, gorgeous figure and straight black hair hanging down her back. She was a high-price callgirl in Vegas before she-" he paused, rethought, "before she came to L.A. Catherine Rawlins was Stacker Shoemaker's last date." 

Rockford tried to follow, "Do you mean he saw her the night he died?"

"Yes," said Kolchak, "and he got a lot more than he paid for."

Kolchak paused before taking the plunge. "Thursday night, at approximately 10:45 PM, following a lead from Catherine's 'manager', I entered Shoemaker's apartment – door wide open – to find Clay dead on the floor and four men, not a one under 225 pounds, being tossed around the room by our Ms. Rawlins."

"_What?_" Rockford's expression would've made Kolchak laugh on any other day. "Are you telling me-?"

"There were no black-robed cultists in sight, Jim. Just one petite hooker with pronounced canines and what one might assume to be the physical disadvantage of being three years dead."

The Firebird swerved violently for a second as Rockford involun­tarily jerked the wheel. Without further comment or exclamation, Rockford slowed the car to a stop on the freeway's shoulder and hit the hazards. When he turned back to Kolchak, the expression on his face was one of wary attention, a prompt to con­tinue. So Kolchak did.

He began by describing for Rockford a series of slayings that occurred in Las Vegas three years before. Six women at final count but possibly many more. Each of these murders displaying the same M.O.: mutilation of the neck and complete blood loss. At the time Kolchak had been just doing his job, covering the crime beat, when he became more and more convinced that something unbelievable was behind these deaths. He had been present for the aftermath of a hospital blood bank robbery by a tall, dark man with blazing eyes – a man Kolchak witnessed being shot multiple times at point-blank range without slowing him down. The police later identified their prime suspect as a European national named Janos Skorzeny – a fugitive from Interpol and a man that, if his birth records were to be believed, was performing these feats at a spry 72 years of age. Kolchak had taken it upon himself to urge the Las Vegas sheriff's department and city police to treat the suspect as if he were exactly what he appeared to be. Though openly derided and threatened by the city officials, Kolchak learned later that Las Vegas cops had, in those last few days of the manhunt, been issued crucifixes, holy water and stakes. In the end, it had still fallen on Kolchak and his one good friend in the FBI, Bernie Fain, to track Skorzeny to his dilapidated wreck of a rented home one night just before dawn. The confron­tation had been horrifying, the work to be done gruesome, but by the time the sun had risen and the police had arrived on the scene, Janos Skorzeny was a threat no longer. For his efforts and heroism, Kolchak received a one-way ticket out of town with the threat of incarceration (or worse) should he ever attempt to return to Sin City or if he tried to spread the true story of the events of that terrible year.

"This is all completely verifiable," Kolchak informed Rockford, "Police records, autopsy reports, newspaper accounts – including a few under my own byline. You'll find everything I just relayed – except the most important part of the story. You'll never come across the slightest mention of the word _'vampire.'_"

Kolchak watched Rockford's face, to see how the concepts were being digested, but the detective just stared back with one elbow propped on the steering wheel, his deadpan expression intermittently lit by the headlights of cars roaring past.

Catherine Rawlins, Kolchak continued, had been the one victim of Skorzeny's that had never been found and, apparently, the only one infected with his curse. Kolchak hadn't known any of this, of course, until an acquaintance had let slip about a string of sus­picious murders that had been occurring along the road from Vegas to L.A. The possibility that these were somehow related to the Skorzeny case is what brought Kolchak westward. Rawlins had killed several people – men and women (including her own sister) – before laying into Stacker Shoemaker and the Godzilla Gang. Again Kolchak's attempts to work with the police, to try to guide them towards a highly improbable solution to a particularly nasty string of homicides, ran aground of the 20th century rationalism of men like Lt. Jack Mateo and the LAPD. And again it was Kolchak who bore the burden of hunting and destroying a foul and terrible thing. In doing so, he had set alight the 20 foot white cross that had stood as a local landmark on a Burbank hillside not far from the grounds of Forest Lawn since the 1920s – pinning Rawlins beneath its righteous light. 

The cops had booked Kolchak for the murder of Catherine Rawlins until the M.E. reported that the body of the woman identified as the victim showed signs of advanced decomposition. In short, she had been dead long before Kolchak had killed her.

Rockford stared on as Kolchak kept elaborating, inwardly marveling at the spectrum of madness in the world. He'd seen myriad shades of lunacy in his day, just as many outside the slammer as in, and each had been crazy in his own special way. Take this guy for instance, smarts, a way with words, good storyteller, acerbic wit, likable and seemingly sane. And then you listen to the fantasies he's laying out in journalistic detail, and you look at the utter conviction writ across his slightly comical face, and you just have to wonder how many more certifiable nutcases walk amongst us each and every day, going to work, heading home, tucking their kids in at night.

"…. but of course that all depends on finding where he's roosting, which is where you come in," Kolchak was wrapping up, finding Rockford's expression unchanged. "Jim?"

It looked like Rockford was swimming up from his own thoughts, "Mm? Yeah? You were saying something about Dracula?"

Kolchak nodded, smarting a bit but taking it, "Okay, I know, I know. This is coming high and fast out of left field, but for this to work, you're going to have to believe me – or at least give me the room to prove all this to you. What do you say?"

With a flick of his wrist, Rockford had turned the engine back on. He responded sarcastically as he shifted the car into gear and spun back into traffic, "I say it's a little early for Halloween, Carl."

"Better check your calendar, friend," Kolchak uttered darkly, "It's _always_ Halloween. Trust me."

Too tired and low on gas to swing towards Kolchak's motel, Rockford drove both of them to his trailer. The reporter/head case could sleep on his couch. The Trans-Am rolled onto the sandy "driveway" fronting his modest home. The sight of his dad's truck already parked there only indicated to Rockford that quarters would be a little cramped that night.

They exited the car and Kolchak followed Rockford up the steps to the trailer's door. "Beachfront," he said diplomatically, "Very nice."

"Yeah, well, location is everything," Rockford said, jangling his keys as he reached for the door.

The door swung open from the inside so quickly that it caught Rockford full in the face, knocking him backward into Kolchak and sending them both to the sand before either knew what had happened.

From their place on the ground, both Kolchak and Rockford could make out Angel framed in the doorway, "Jimmy! Thank God!"

Angel had hopped down to meet them as they regained their footing. The look in his eyes was one Rockford had rarely seen, even in one as prone to cowardice as Angel Martin – genuine panic. "Angel? What's going on?" he asked, noting the appearance of his father now filling the doorway. "Rocky?"

Rockford's dad, a thickly-built old man with a boxer's face, stood at the trailer's threshold in a ratty bathrobe, his white hair mussed from sleep. "Angel here called me for help when he couldn't find you, Jimmy. I drove him here to wait for you to show."

"It's Val, Jimmy," Angel said urgently, his hand gripping Rockford's shoulders. "She's gone! And it's all my fault, man!"

"What?" Kolchak chimed in while Rockford attempted to put the brakes on Angel's escalating anxiety.

"Wait a minute now, just keep it together and come inside."

"No!" Angel insisted, "We gotta go _now – this second!_ It's already been too long!"

"And go where?" Rockford asked.

Angel was helplessly turning left and right, clenching handfuls of his hair, looking for all the world like a distraught autistic child, "I don't _know_, man, I don't know! But we gotta find her!"

Rockford guided his friend along with a hand on his back, making for the steps into the trailer, Kolchak following. Looking to his dad, Rockford said calmly, "How about some coffee, pop?"

Rocky backed up to let them all enter, "Yeah, sure thing." After Kolchak entered and briefly introduced himself, Rocky asked, "Where you boys been? You're filthy!"

Sitting Angel down at the small dining table, Rockford squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his chin, "Just make the coffee, okay?"

While Rocky clanked and banged about the kitchenette, Rockford and Kolchak joined Angel around the table. "Angel," Rockford started gently, "start from the beginning and tell us what happened."

Angel took a deep breath. "Valerie's been staying at my pad since she got here. When she's not crying, she's baking stuff. She's been baking a lot. I don't know, maybe it calms her down, all I know is I got muffins for days. So last night, I mean just a few hours ago – like 10 or 10:30 – the phone rings. When the phone rings at my place I'm usually right on it 'cause I've always got … associates … looking to wheel and deal." For Kolchak's benefit, Angel stressed, "All com­pletely legit business, understand."

Kolchak nodded reassuringly but Rockford prompted, "So you got a call - ?"

"Yeah, only I didn't and it wasn't for me anyway," Angel picked up, "Val was closer so she grabbed the phone. Once she listened for a second she kinda gasped and went all white in the face. Her hand started shaking. There wasn't much of a conversation, I heard her say, 'yes' a couple of times and then she hung up but missed the rest of the phone so the handle part just fell on the floor and started beeping. She had me freaked out so I'm asking her, 'What was it?', you know? 'Are you okay?' And she said, 'That was Clay again.' I swear, man, that's what she said. But she wouldn't say anything else other than she needed to lie down. She was still shaking. I was worried for her so I told her to get to bed and that I would give you a call which I did but I got your machine."

"She never told you what he said?" Kolchak asked.

"That's what I said, man, she was too shook up to talk about it. So she went off to the bedroom and I sat on the couch watching TV. I started nodding off myself 'til midnight – around there – when I hear this engine. A sports car with one of those racing engines – loud – and that wakes me up along with the light from its headlights coming through the blinds as the thing pulls up in front. And I'm thinkin' _what's this about?_ And so I get up to peek out the window and what do I see but Valerie outside running for the car and hopping in and driving off. She snuck out my bedroom window, Jimmy, no note or anything."

Rockford looked concerned, but he kept his usual level head, "But you didn't see her coerced or forced into the car. She's a girl in her 20s, she's got college friends around who haven't seen her in a while, she could be at a party for all you know. It's only been, what, four hours or so now? I wouldn't call out the bloodhounds just yet."

Angel's eyes, his whole body language suggested urgency, "No, but, Jimmy, it was him driving the car! It was 'Stacker' Shoemaker, I'm sure of it!"

The coffee was awful which made Kolchak feel like he was back in the INS newsroom. This was oddly comforting as he sat back and listened in to Rockford going thoroughly through the points of Angel's story: the make and model of the car (a silver Porsche - "one of the new ones" as far as Angel could tell), license plate number ("there was two 8s and an 'X' and a 'B', I think"), what direction the car went (south), etc. The sun would be rising soon. To Rockford this meant getting his buddy Sgt. Becker's day off to a busy start. But to Kolchak the coming dawn represented a reprieve, thirteen hours or so of daylight in which to do the terrible work he knew must be done. Either way, both men knew they wouldn't be getting to sleep anytime soon.

Around 7 AM, Rockford and Kolchak saw Angel back to his apartment. Though Angel was adamant about sticking with them and aiding the search for his cousin, Rockford deflected this by rea­soning that he could best serve the investigation by staying home in case there was word from Valerie or, even better, if she just happened to show up. Angel couldn't argue with the logic of the idea so he agreed. Promising to check in throughout the day, Rockford and Kolchak took their leave.

Next, Rockford dropped Kolchak off at his motel so the be­draggled reporter could send his wearables through another spin in the washer and dryer. Though his clothes could certainly use the attention, this was also a valid excuse to bow out of Rockford's subsequent trip to Becker's precinct house; in light of his less-than-cordial treatment at the hands of the LAPD (interrogated, booked for murder and finally released with the threat of instant incarceration if he was seen in L.A. – city or county – again), Kolchak doubted it was wise to show his face around the boys in blue. They planned for a lunchtime rendezvous and Rockford drove away. 

"You're unbelievable, Jim," Becker sighed, "No doubt about it, a real piece of work."

Rockford leaned back in the chair opposite Becker's desk and propped his boots on the edge dangerously close to the photo of Peg, Mrs. Becker. "Sweet of you to say, Dennis."

Becker, a squat, balding pug of a man who was already dis­playing pit-stains through his thin polyester dress shirt at 9 in the morning, looked less than happy, swatting his friend's feet off the desk with a handful of reports in manila folders. "I'm barely ten minutes in this seat – my first cup of coffee," he held the cup up to illustrate, "is still mostly warm – and you waltz in here like the migraine fairy just waiting to make this day longer and harder and more a pain in the butt than it promised to be when I went to bed last night."

"At least you _got_ to sleep last night," Rockford replied, "Some of us aren't that lucky."

Becker's eyes rolled but his fit of piquant was done. He took a long slug of coffee, sloshed it around in his mouth for a second before swallowing grossly. Making a show of it, Becker then set his cup down and folded his hands, fingers interlocked, in front of his chest. With an almost regal lift of his eyebrows, he addressed the lanky inter­loper across from him, "Okay, Mr. Rockford, what can the Los Angeles Police Department do for you today?"

After most of the tale had been told (Rockford omitted the thornier details of illegal grave tampering, empty caskets and Carl Kolchak and his Creature Feature theories), Becker said he would start the search for a vehicle fitting the description of the one Valerie Martin left in and could also promise a phone record of calls placed to Angel's number the night before. When Rockford asked if there had been any progress in getting the list of calls to Valerie's Brooklyn phone from Monday night, Becker looked incredulous.

"Since yesterday? Let me see … _no_. I don't know if you non-police types understand or not, but we don't have some super­computer where we just hit a couple of buttons and – _voila_ – it spits out a card with the answers punched right on it. This takes time and manpower, Jim, so hang onto your britches. Since your pal Angel is a local, we'll probably have the call list in a few hours, but the Brooklyn number and the car search – well, just don't hold your breath."

Rockford understood and appreciated these truths already but it never hurt to urge on the effort when it mattered. As he stood to leave, Rockford offered, "You know I appreciate it, Dennis. One thing: when you look for that car, I suggest looking through the hot sheets first. That should cut the time down a bit."

Becker looked up, "A hunch?"

"Yeah."

"You got it," Becker said, already moving for his phone, "Now, do you mind if I attend to some of the actual crime that's been patiently waiting its turn since you got here?"

Rockford just laughed as he left the office.

A plate of gnawed-on shrimp tails sat between them on the rough-wooden table. Though bleary-eyed, Kolchak was feeling good with a full stomach. They had received the royal treatment when the owner of this small but bustling seafood shack in Santa Monica spotted Rockford coming through the door. The proprietor had ushered them to a table and joked around with Rockford for a minute before rushing off to the kitchen to "whip you up a feast." And he had. Rockford's only explanation of all this was that he'd done some work for the guy once. Kolchak wondered what that must've been but didn't ask.

Rockford also had a question he'd wanted to put to Kolchak since he'd picked him up but had likewise refrained: _what's in the bag?_ Since they'd last seen each other that morning, luggage-less Kolchak had acquired a cheap gym bag (drug store tags still dangling from the handles) yet still carried his camera and tape recorder slung off his shoulder. Rockford had dim speculations of such a ridiculous and unnerving nature that he shoved them aside and decided to pay them no attention. He glanced at his watch. It was already 5:30 PM; the day lost to the fruitless tracking down of Valerie Martin's friends and acquaintances to see if they'd seen or heard from her. When Rockford had finally come for Kolchak, he found the reporter ready and anxious. 

"Time to check in?" Kolchak asked. "Let's pray they've got some leads."

"Amen to that," Rockford replied, "Be right back."

He rose and made for the bar, calling out to the owner, "Hey, Ronnie, mind if I use the phone? It's local."

Ever-grateful Ronnie plunked his phone down on the bar top. "For you, Jimmy, anything."

Kolchak smirked. He was definitely in the wrong line of work.

"Yeah, Jim, I got some new info," Becker was saying over the line, "but first I got a question for you."

Rockford played along, "Okay, Dennis, sure. What's up?"

"Since when are you Boris Karloff all of a sudden?"

"What?"

"Oh, okay, I see how this works now," Becker continued, his sarcasm growing more hostile the longer he talked, "this is where you give me some alibi for last night – this is where you tell me it must've been some other bronze colored Firebird peeling out from Forest Lawn Cemetery-"

"Now wait a minute, Dennis," Rockford started to protest, but Becker wasn't finished just yet.

"You left your big Band-Aid behind!"

Rockford sighed, knowing there was nowhere to go but straight ahead. "Okay, Dennis, yes, I was there. But this ties in-"

"Where the hell is Stacker Shoemaker!" Becker bellowed.

"That's the 64 thousand dollar question," Rockford admitted. "The grave was empty when we got there."

"We? Who've you roped into your new criminal career, Jim?"

"An interested party."

"You know who's interested, Jim? I am – _very_ interested! And it's only a matter of time before Jack Mateo gets interested, since it's his case you're stepping all over, and from there it's just a hop and a skip before the DA's office gets interested in a bad way!"

Rockford tried to rein his buddy in, "Dennis, if you have the leads I asked for, that means I'm that much closer to wrapping this whole thing up. What you should now be thinking about is the young woman who's possibly in danger right now from whoever's behind all this."

"Who's behind this?" Becker parroted, "That's no mystery, Jim, it's those freaks from the Dark Star Coven. The two 'warlocks' we have in the stir are taking the credit for everything."

"What did you find out, Dennis?"

"The Porsche – you were right on that one, Jim. It came up on the hot sheet in connection with the Fanelli case."

"Who?"

"Leo Fanelli, big shot talent agent found murdered in a Westwood restaurant parking lot two nights ago. Neck all messed up like in those other Coven murders. His Porsche was missing."

"And so was his blood, right?" Rockford asked, shooting a look over at Kolchak who sat at their table nonchalantly loading his camera with film.

"Jim – there's a limit to what I can tell you, you know that."

Rockford's stomach was rolling, "The phone logs, did you get any-"

Becker cut him off, "Yeah, here's the clincher. At 10:27 PM last night a call was put through to your buddy Angel's line coming from a Silver Lake phone number. Specifically from 478 Wollam Street."

"Hold on, Dennis," Rockford said, pulling the small note pad and pen from his jacket's inside pocket, "give that to me again?" He jotted the address down as Becker repeated it.

"Should I know the place?" Rockford asked.

"Probably not," Becker responded, "but to your hard-working police department that is known as the headquarters of the Dark Star Coven." 

65. 70. 75. Kolchak watched the needle push farther and farther to the right of the Trans-Am's speedometer, finally holding and bobbing just past 85. He made a good show of listening to what Rockford was saying, but he was slightly preoccupied with watching the cars dodging out of their way and the angry or startled looks on the other drivers' faces as they were overtaken by the roaring muscle car.

"So I hope you're okay with a slightly more mundane – if still grim – explanation of recent events," Rockford was saying, as coolly as any Indy 500 champ.

"If it leads us to Valerie Martin, safe and sound, then that's all that matters, obviously," Kolchak said, flinching only slightly when Rockford performed a very illegal high-speed lane change, narrowly avoiding the bumper of the pick-up in front of them. "But are you saying that this cult – only two members of which have been arrested – is behind all these similar murders – Clay Shoemaker and the Godzilla Gang, the talent agent Fanelli, even Catherine Rawlins's sister and boyfriend?"

Rockford answered, "I don't know about that; I haven't looked into that case at all. I'm just saying at this point it appears likely that these cultists are on some kind of rampage. They're the ones who have Valerie."

"What kind of sense does that make, though?" Kolchak asked, still gripping the handle of his door, his knuckles bloodless, "Why target the out-of-state girlfriend of one of their victims? And why would a group of Satan worshippers kill a man for his snazzy wheels?"

It was obvious that even Rockford had his doubts, his excuse sounding half-hearted, "Well, come on, what did the Manson Family have against the La Biancas or that Tate woman? These freaks are playing by their own rulebook and there's not a whole lot w-"

Rockford stomped on the brakes, verbally as well as literally, to avoid plowing into the back of the Pinto in front of them. "Hey!" Kolchak exclaimed, bracing for impact, while Rockford uttered something a lot more colorful. They weren't the only ones coming to a sudden stop; to the right and left – four lanes of the 110 were at a dead standstill.

"Damn it!" Rockford added, smacking the heel of his palm against the steering wheel.

Kolchak craned his head towards the side window, trying to peer past the cars stacked immediately before them. "What is this? Rush hour?"

Rockford sighed, "Some maybe. But I forgot it's a game night."

"A what?"

"The Dodgers are at home tonight. That's Dodgers Stadium right up there," Rockford indicated the hill up ahead on the left. "They're playing the Braves, I think."

Kolchak looked at the section of the stadium visible from their position that primarily consisted of the light banks ringing the huge circular structure. As if on cue they popped on as he watched, the light blurring in parallel rays against the darkening purple-blue sky.

5. 8. 0. 3. The needle weakly twitched from the bottom of the speedometer's horizon.

"We've got to hurry, Jim!"

"I'm worried too but there's not much I can do right now," Rockford said, scooting up the few feet the traffic's snail like pace allowed. "But the good news is Becker's already sent a patrol car around to the place. Hopefully this will all be wrapped up by the time we get there."

Kolchak sank back in his seat. "Yeah … hopefully," he said, silently willing the sun to stick around just a bit longer.

It was a tense wait as they lurched and heaved through the traffic snarl adjacent to the ballpark. In spots here and there they stood still long enough to watch the shadows lengthen beneath their wheels. Once free, Rockford nearly shoved his foot through the car's floorboard, pushing all 8 cylinders as hard as he could. They dipped and rose along the freeway until, not too long after, Rockford took the Figueroa exit that was marked with a sign indicating they were headed towards Elyria Canyon Park.

The streets they took wound downward from the heights of Mount Washington to the pleasant community of Silver Lake whose fine wooden town homes stacked lackadaisically amongst stretches of honest-to-goodness Nature seemed to Kolchak more like Seattle than the garish urban sprawl of Hollywood below. The closer they got to the park, the more sparse the development became and once they'd reached the end of Wollam Street there was just one house left standing at the border of the deep green reserve beyond, a two story house no more ominous than any others on the block. The only suggestion of something amiss was the presence of a solitary black-and-white patrol unit sitting in front of the house, empty.

Rockford rolled the Trans-Am to a gentle stop. When he and Kolchak exited the car they were greeted with a quiet evening broken only by the sound of distant dogs, muted televisions and the squawking chatter of the police car's radio – calls no one was answering.

"Carl, maybe you should stay put for now," Rockford warned.

"Not a chance," Kolchak replied as they made their cautious way to the front door. "Do you carry a gun?"

Rockford frowned, "No."

"Wouldn't do you any good anyway," replied Kolchak, waving the idea away. "But do yourself a favor and take this." He reached into his gym bag and produced a small crucifix on a chain.

The look Rockford now shot Kolchak was all the response necessary and Kolchak bobbed his head to say _okay, I get it_ and dropped the crucifix back into the bag. The detective was inwardly referring to the checklist of pros versus cons in bringing Kolchak along on this rescue mission in the first place and finding his math questionable. He would now have to keep a protective eye on the affable lunatic as well as deal with the situation - whatever it might be – waiting for them on the other side of this door.

Rockford held a silencing finger to his lips as he tried the front door knob of 478 Wollam. He didn't have to do much as the door swung lightly open at his touch. With a look to Kolchak and a motion indicating to keep low, Rockford knelt and carefully pushed the door open enough to allow him to creep inside. With one last look behind him, scanning the western horizon where the day's sun was steadily dropping behind the ridge of the ambitious hill called Mount Washington, Kolchak followed.

There were lights on inside the place but it was stock still, the air not stirring even with the breeze introduced from outside. They entered a foyer that branched into a small living room; the walls pleasantly covered with sunny yellow and white striped wallpaper and here or there framed posters of meadow scenes. There were a couple of couches and standing lamps and crocheted rugs on the hardwood floors – nothing that announced this as the inner sanctum of black magic either investigator expected. The hallway they inched along was lined with bookshelves where a cursory examination re­vealed the collected volumes of Aleister Crowley's _Magicks_ side by side with _I'm OK, You're OK_ and _Happiness is a Warm Puppy_. Ahead on the right was the empty kitchen while on the left was the entrance to a guest room – visible on the floor spilling out from with this room was what looked to be small shards of broken ceramic. Rockford was first to the room and he peered around the edge of the doorjamb. Kolchak saw the small jolt in Rockford's shoulders and angled himself to get his own view.

Inside the guest room was a small bed with its mattress jarred at a strange angle on its box springs, an overturned chest-of-drawers and the remains of a heavy vase that lay jagged and sparkling amongst the disarray of what most have been a violent struggle. Across the bed was a teenage boy tossed down and bent oddly, his neck mangled and spattered with gore. Beneath him were the legs of an older woman whose torso was bent at the waist so her upper half wasn't visible from where Rockford and Kolchak stood. Her stockinged feet were shoeless. A mother and son? Rockford didn't know but the answer didn't matter right now. The sight sickened him and he'd seen plenty of terrible things in his time. He was doubly sickened by the sudden click of Kolchak's camera. Rockford angrily grabbed at the reporter's jacket lapel, wordlessly expressing his disgust. All Kolchak could do was shrug apologetically. Rockford shook his head and turned from the room. If there were cops here, they must be in trouble. Their hearts thudding in their throats, Rockford and Kolchak headed for the stairs. 

They found the third body halfway up. It was a middle-aged man in a black turtleneck sprawled upside down across the stairs, a gold medallion of a ram's head dangling past his chin and laying on the wooden stair step. Rockford and Kolchak had to clamber over his remains to reach the second floor landing. Once they had reached the top a gasp escaped Rockford despite himself and he didn't react this time to the snap of Kolchak's shutter. Taking in the scene before them, he could hardly fault the newsman's zeal.

There was no master bedroom or bath; the entire upper story had been converted into one room that looked like a cross between a torture chamber and the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. The walls, ceiling and floor were painted jet black, the only color in the room coming from the blood red candles arranged in the four corners of the room on tall ceremonial holders and from the crimson pentacle deco­rating the far wall where at some point in the past windows might have been. There were chains and manacles bolted into the walls about the room. There were standing cabinets filled with implements of pain. And there was a stout oaken altar situated in the middle of the floor as wide and long as queen size bed. The whole scene smacked of B-movie obviousness and do-it-yourself Satanism, so much so that it would have been laughable if not for the corpses.

They were scattered everywhere. Seven men and two women fallen about the place in no order or arrangement, having just been dropped where they died, and one woman atop the altar, gagged, nude and chained by the wrists and ankles. Amongst the dead on the floor of the room were two police officers, freshly killed and still leaking blood from the gouges in their necks. Their hands still loosely holding their revolvers. The air stank of bodies just starting to decom­pose and the acrid smoke of discharged rounds. It was a horrific sight and Rockford's mind reeled. He immediately knelt to check on the policemen, to see if there was any hope at all that one or both might still be clinging to life. Kolchak was so overwhelmed that it took him another second before he realized the "corpse" on the altar was breathing. And that it was Valerie Martin.

Kolchak manically rushed to the enormous wooden platform, reaching for the girl's head, cradling it with one hand and pulling loose the knotted cloth gag with the other. It was hard to accept that this drawn, bony thing – her chalk-white bosom barely lifting and falling, her neck bearing the kind of awful, bruised puncture wounds Kolchak was all-too familiar with – was the same vibrant if sad young woman he'd met just three days ago. Her deep-shadowed eyes were closed, but Kolchak leaned in close to try and rouse her, "Valerie? Valerie, can you hear me?"

Kolchak could see her eyes rolling beneath their twitching lids. She was fighting her way back.

He brushed the long black hair from her face, "Valerie, it's Carl. We need you to wake up, honey."

Across the room Rockford was examining another of the likely dead. Actually, he had no doubt that this broad-shouldered fellow was a goner, the smell alone suggested he'd been deceased for much longer than the members of the Dark Star Coven. Before he even turned the body over, he had a feeling he knew what the blonde man's face would look like.

"Jim!" Kolchak called, distracting Rockford from the corpse of "Stacker" Shoemaker. "It's Valerie! She's alive!"

Rockford's head shot up, his eyes lit with surprise and grati­tude for an inkling of good news in the midst of this slaughterhouse. Kolchak and Valerie both were looking his way, the girl's gaze clouded over and vague. Rockford was about to say something, was in the midst of raising himself from his kneel, when he saw Valerie's eyes shift from semi-consciousness to sharp focus to stark terror in the span of two seconds. She wasn't looking at him, but at some point below. There was a low animal hiss from beneath him and a super­humanly powerful left arm swung into his side, sending him flying into the heavy cabinets several yards across the room. Rockford went down heavily and the cabinets collapsed on top of him with house-shaking force. The detective was unconscious, leaving Kolchak on his own to face the dark mockery of the All-American golden boy rising to his feet and pinning him with a malevolent stare. Shoemaker's lips

peeled back, displaying the same perfect white smile as seen on his bubble-gum trading card with two noticeable alterations – a pair of wicked fangs.

Kolchak found himself wishing: _once,_ _just once, I'd like to find these guys while they're still asleep._

Shoemaker crossed the span between them with one cobra-fast bound but found a large metal cross before his face, being brandished by the ludicrous looking guy in the straw hat and seersucker suit. The undead football hero jerked backward involuntarily, shielding his eyes and roaring.

"_AAAOOOOOOWW! Jesus_, man!" Shoemaker spat, backing away from Kolchak, "What'd you have to pull that for? Uncool, man!"

"Sorry, Stacker. You oughtta know the importance of a good defense." Kolchak's words were pointedly cocky, but his face was still a wide-eyed mask of alertness and nerves.

He noticed that the vampire was backing for the doorway and, with capable aim, tossed a small disk of hard bread to the floor just at the room's threshold. Shoemaker's foot jerked back from the host as if it radiated the heat of the Sun. He cursed at the top of his voice. Hitting the "record" button on the cassette corder hung from his shoulder, Kolchak allowed himself a small grin, "Where're you going, hot shot? I was hoping you might answer some questions for our readers…."

"Screw you, Poindexter!" Shoemaker retorted, aiming a finger at Kolchak who snapped a quick picture one-handed. "You don't get to mess this up for me!"

"Mess what up, Clay? Death?"

"Aw, man, you don't know," Shoemaker said, "I thought pro football was great, you know? The dough, the chicks. But this – _this!_" He shifted his gaze to Valerie who stared back with terrified eyes, "Look at this bod, baby, look at this face! I'm gonna look like this _forever!_"

Like a magician with one more trick, Kolchak pulled his left hand from the gym bag and aimed a 75-cent water gun at the broad handsome face that "Stacker" Shoemaker was so proud of. He squeezed the trigger and a stream of tap water he'd had a Hispanic sidewalk evangelist bless earlier that afternoon hit the vampire's face with the sound of bacon grease on a super-heated skillet. The shriek that escaped Shoemaker's blistered mouth was inhuman.

Shoemaker whirled and drove his shoulder into Kolchak's chest as if he were a 300-pound tackle. Kolchak fell hard against the edge of the altar upon which poor, manacled Valerie was powerless to do anything but scream soundlessly from her wounded throat. Kolchak blinked at the pain, trying but failing to draw breath into his lungs, while Shoemaker strode across the floor – careful to sidestep the cross and water gun that had fallen from Kolchak's hands in flight.

Kolchak wheezed and attempted to get to his feet but Shoemaker was closer, growling, frothing at the mouth like a rabid beast. The undead athlete clutched Kolchak's throat and leaned in. Shoemaker's mouth opened and Kolchak was assaulted by a gust of coppery, fetid breath….

No one was more surprised that Rockford wasn't dead than the man himself. There were hands on his shoulders gently shaking him, and his eyes rolled making uncertain attempts at opening. Each time they did a gong of pain was struck in his skull and Rockford groaned.

"Jim," somebody was saying somewhere. "C'mon, Jim, we've gotta go."

He forced his eyes open again and caught a glimpse of two smudged silhouettes hovering over him. People? Ghosts? Rockford worked himself up to one elbow and stretched the muscles in his face, trying to warm himself up to full awareness. The gong kept striking.

"Come on, Jim," one of the shapes was saying and Rockford saw the blur resolve itself into more detail. He recognized the hat. "Do you think you can stand?"

"Kolchak?" Rockford finally said and instantly regretted it, his own voice reverberating painfully through his head. But something of Kolchak's urgency was seeping through the fog and Rockford held out an arm that the reporter grabbed and hoisted his tall frame to a more erect, if still unstable, posture. 

Rockford swayed and another set of hands caught him, smaller hands. Rockford's head turned and his rapidly clearing vision was able to make out the form of Valerie Martin, clothed now in some kind of long, loose garment that he finally registered as being one of the cult's robes.

"Valerie?" Rockford queried, "Are you okay?"

"No," she answered quietly.

Kolchak was trying to usher them to the door. "But we're all still alive and – for the moment – not incarcerated. I suggest we try to stay that way."

Rockford made to ask a question but he heard them too – police sirens, still far off but echoing faintly through the quiet of the canyon.

The trio made their way for the stairs but Rockford paused, his brain reassembling the facts and reasons behind his present location. With too many questions and no time, Rockford looked back into the chamber of horrors that he wished he'd never seen and found the body he was looking for. "Stacker" Shoemaker had moved … some­how. And now he lay on his back, eyes open and dead staring at the black ceiling, with a piece of wood (like the kind of garden stake used for growing tomatoes) puncturing his chest.

The sight just made his head hurt worse.

"I thought they turned to dust," Rockford muttered as they hurried down the stairs.

"That only happens in the movies," Kolchak said.

Kolchak was driving. True, Rockford knew he was in no shape to pilot his car, but it still made him anxious. They had rolled inconspicuously out of Wollam Street just as the first police cruisers made their appearance. Rockford felt sorry for them, knowing they were only sent to check up on their unresponsive fellow officers. They had no idea what was waiting for them at the end of the quiet street.

Rockford was in the back seat with a protective arm around Valerie's shoulder. If anything she looked even worse in the staccato flashes of streetlight briefly illuminating the car. Kolchak first asked Rockford for directions to the nearest hospital, then began engaging Valerie in an interview about what had transpired over the course of her abduction. Rockford was inclined to tell Kolchak to lay off, but, as Valerie began to talk, his own curiosity kicked in and he was soon drawing answers out of the exhausted and traumatized girl.

Last night, after she'd snuck away from her cousin's apart­ment to meet her boyfriend, she had wanted to know where Clay was taking her. He'd said he'd gotten a new place he couldn't wait to show her. She asked him why everyone was saying he was dead. And Clay had answered, "Because I am." She had started crying, getting hysterical, and he'd slapped her – hard. But he had told her everything would be fine, his voice sounding just like it used to after they made love.

The house was full of dead people and she had started screaming and wouldn't stop no matter how many times he hit her. That's when he tied the gag over her mouth. He told her to calm down, that these weren't people anymore – they were food. He'd learned that from the whore, Cathy, the one who turned him. He'd seen her a few times and she was "a kinky chick," she would bite and have him do the same to her.

In the back of Rockford's Trans-Am, Valerie flatly reported, "And then he even apologized for seeing a hooker. He told me he only did it 'cause she reminded him of me."

When he'd first "woken up" and clawed his way out of the ground, he'd been confused, scared, but, more than that, he'd been so hungry. He'd gone home, past the police tape across his door, and that's where he'd called her from. But the realization soon dawned that too many people would recognize him if he stayed there, so he left. Restless, he'd made his first kill that night – a bald guy in a nice suit outside of a restaurant Clay used to love. He took the man's car.

Clay had read the papers and watched the news and saw how a group of devil worshippers were taking the credit for his murder as well as others. So Clay had decided to pay "the flakes" a little visit to see if they would like to see their handiwork up close.

"They were total phonies," Clay had said to Valerie, "They peed themselves when I showed up at the door."

He'd asked Valerie if she'd missed him as much as he'd missed her. And then he strapped her to the altar and raped her several times. He'd bitten her and lapped at the blood flowing from her neck. She thought he was going to kill her like he had all the others but he kept whispering to her that he would make sure they would be together forever.

By the end of her tale, Valerie's voice was a dry whisper, "But he didn't understand – I couldn't make him understand – I wanted him to kill me…" Her eyes had dimmed and were now frozen, staring ahead but focusing on nothing. She now just kept repeating softly, "Why didn't he kill me? Why didn't he kill me? Why didn't he kill me…?"

Rockford met Kolchak's gaze in the rear-view mirror, both men radiating the same sympathetic regret. Rockford heard Kolchak shut off his tape recorder.

The hospital Rockford had guided Kolchak to was one where the detective had a couple of friends; good doctors who would help Jim with confidential treatment kept off the books no matter how severe or how suspicious. They saw to Valerie who was on the verge of shock and in need of an immediate transfusion and they looked after Rockford's wounds old and new: three bruised ribs and a new concussion to go with his still tender gunshot wound of three weeks ago. Rockford thanked them for the diagnosis but declined their firm "suggestion" of an overnight stay. Within the hour Rocky arrived with Angel in tow and an edited version of the night's events was then spun. Rockford warned Valerie's cousin that, once she was awake, she might go on about "vampires" but that was just the kid­napping trauma talking. Upon securing Kolchak a ride back to his motel from Rocky ("What am I, a taxi service?" his father had quipped), Rockford drove himself home.

Exhausted and beaten, he slept hard, but not as soundly as he wished. His dreams were of teeth.

The bartender set two beers in front of them, eyeing Rockford oddly for the strange way he was sitting on the stool, rigidly straight and wincing with every move.

Kolchak took a long draw from his glass knowing this would be the first of a few. He would need plenty of lubrication to deal with his upcoming flight and, more to the point, Anthony Vincenzo's ire which would be waiting for him when he disembarked at O'Hare.

Rockford was seeing Kolchak off for his 2:30 flight and they had mutually decided to cap things off with a quick drink at the very airport bar where they'd been introduced. The conversation on the drive to LAX had been sparse. There were terrible, unbelievable facts hanging in the air between them, facts that one man didn't want to accept and the other man bore like a ball and chain. Rockford had reported that his friend Sgt. Becker would keep Valerie Martin's name out of the investigation into the Dark Star Coven massacre, which should be easy enough as there was never an official case opened for her disappearance. Becker also had an update that verified Valerie's story but left Rockford's sergeant friend further bewildered: the call placed to Valerie's Brooklyn number on Monday night was from Clay Shoemaker's home phone, the same Westwood apartment that had been empty since his death three days previous. As for Valerie, Angel would look after her while she recovered in the hospital and then see her safely home to Brooklyn where he hoped time, friends, family and years of therapy would help to scab over wounds of this experience.

Rockford also told Kolchak to breathe easy about his own in­volvement, the Coven murder case was taken out of Lt. Mateo's hands earlier that morning and passed along to another LAPD homi­cide detective, a Lt. Columbo.

"Is he good?" Kolchak had asked.

"_Very_ good," Rockford replied, "and thorough. He'll defi­nitely place me at the scene, but I should be able to wriggle my way out of any criminal charges. I was there looking into the death and disappearance of 'Stacker' Shoemaker, I got there after the deeds were done, I saw dead cops and decided not to hang around. Doesn't paint me in such a noble light, but it'll still keep me out of jail."

"I wonder how they'll clean this one up for mass consump­tion," Kolchak mused, but Rockford had no answer.

His beer nearly drained, Rockford rolled the glass between his palms for a moment, distracted, searching for a way, any way, to avoid broaching the only topic they now had in common. 

"Get this," Rockford started, squinting hard either from his bruises or the difficulty of the subject matter, "For me, this stuff never happened. I told Valerie she needs to follow the same tack with this. She was in shock, she was traumatized, she has no idea what she did or didn't see and hear. Me, I got shot in the head a little while ago. See, we have good excuses. Easy outs." He knew he shouldn't as he still had to drive home, but Rockford found himself ordering another beer. Kolchak waited patiently for Rockford to receive it and take his first sip before continuing.

"But you," he said, pointing the beer glass at Kolchak, "what are you going to do with all of this? Who – How are you going to put a story on the wire saying-" He looked around cautiously and lowered his voice, "-saying that a top draft pick of the LA Rams ended up killing multiple people as a – you know?"

Kolchak sighed and drooped noticeably. "I don't. You forget that I've been around this particular block a couple of times before. I'll write the story twice; one version for the Vincenzos and Mateos of the world, for Mr. And Mrs. John Q. Public and their 2.5 children, and then I'll write one version that's the truth. Who knows if anyone will ever see that one? Or, if they did happen upon it, who would believe it?"

Rockford's eyebrows lifted, "I sure as hell don't and I was there."

"You'd be surprised to know how much of this … kind of thing is going on out there," Kolchak said. "I found out not long ago that the FBI actually had a task force that was specifically set up to look into the _weird _cases that popped up from time to time. My cousin Artie was part of it back in the '50s. But good luck digging anything up on that."

A second beer and a whiskey chaser arrived for Kolchak. Rockford was staring at the bar, shaking his head. "I can't imagine-" he started. Stopped. Started again, "And I don't want to."

Kolchak nodded as he drank. "That's the best protection, my friend. But it's too late for me. It's like I stumbled through a door that I can't back out of and can't close." His voice started to drift, its tone distant and lost, "It's like there's something out there, something dark and hidden and conscious, that we spend our whole lives ignoring. But once you've looked it in the eye, you'll see it everywhere. Once you recognize it, it recognizes you."

Kolchak knocked back the shot of whiskey and smacked his lips, "Or something else liberally cribbed from Nietzsche."

Rockford suppressed a shiver and was glad to hear the announce­ment for the boarding of Kolchak's flight. He swung his long legs around and hopped off the stool with a grunt through gritted teeth. "That's you."

"So it is," Kolchak agreed, slapping down a few dollars for his part of the tab and rising to his feet.

He stuck out a hand, his usual convivial grin having returned to his face. "Jim, it's been a pleasure."

Rockford smirked as he clasped the reporter's hand, "I wouldn't go that far, but it's been swell knowing you."

Kolchak tipped his hat as he turned to go, "Look me up next time you're in Chi-town."

"Wait a minute, Carl," Rockford said, stopping Kolchak in his tracks. "I nearly forgot, I picked up a little something for you." He fished in his jacket pocket 'til he found the little folded paper bag and handed it over.

Kolchak, surprised, unfolded the bag that was printed with the logo of Hollywood Costumes & Toys. "Aw, you didn't have to do that, Jim."

His hand found the rectangular piece of board inside and removed it from the bag. It was a board-backed package bearing the legend in blood-dripping letters "Scary Dracula Teeth" and containing a set of children-sized plastic vampire fangs. Kolchak laughed and it came out like a blackbird's "caw."

"Happy Halloween, Carl," Rockford said.

_Click_. The cassette corder was rolling again and Kolchak brought it close to his mouth, not wishing to distract or disturb his fellow passengers any further (he had already driven off two seat­mates during his dictation of the Catherine Rawlins affair).

While he spoke his eyes roamed the cabin and the brilliant white cloudbanks outside his window. "The City of Angels, the Dream Factory, Tinseltown – all brilliant, sparkling titles for a city unlike any other. But is it truly that unique? This sprawling expanse, birthplace and burial ground of countless dreams, may only present its "good side" to the camera but there, under its blinding sun, the shadows run just as deep as anywhere else. I have peeked into those shadows.

"As of this writing the Los Angeles Police Department is spinning tales as fanciful as any churned out of a screenwriter's IBM Selectric. If you look hard enough you may even see actual facts sprinkled throughout. Two LAPD officers did lose their lives at the headquarters of the Dark Star Coven, that much is true. But you will hear about a standoff, perhaps, or possibly a mass suicide by the cult members, to explain the deaths of five men, three women and a 14 year-old boy. Drugs and the devil will assume the full blame. But one will never hear the name of Clayton Shoemaker mentioned in conjunction with the gruesome events of May 18th.

"'Stacker' will no doubt be quietly returned to his place among the other once-beautiful people of Forest Lawn, taking with him the last vestiges of the cancerous evil spread by Janos Skorzeny: a name this reporter hopes to never write again."

A stewardess pushing the snack tray down the aisle was smiling without conviction at Kolchak and he paused in his recitation until she moved on.

"Clayton Shoemaker is survived by a dazzling record on the college gridiron and by the heart of a woman named Valerie Martin who loved him in life and who suffered by him in death. Though she is now confined to a hospital bed, recovering from horrors she may never be able to reconcile with the memories of happier times, per­haps she will take comfort that at the very least the mystery of what became of her beloved halfback has been – as she herself put it – 'laid to rest.'

"For her sake, and for that of us all, I hope it remains so."

_Click._

After a moment's reflection, Kolchak set the tape recorder aside and pushed his seat back to its farthest stop. He yanked his hat down over his eyes and quickly succumbed to sleep. He dreamed of being very high off the ground, sitting at a desk by a window at the _New York Times_.


End file.
